Former UB President Simpson to receive Norton Medal at commencement

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Former University at Buffalo President
John B. Simpson will receive the Chancellor Charles P. Norton
Medal, the university’s highest honor, during UB’s
167th general commencement on May 12.

Edmond J. Gicewicz, emeritus member of the UB Council, and
longtime UB faculty member and SUNY Distinguished Teaching
Professor Diane Christian will receive the UB President’s
Medal in recognition of extraordinary service to the
university.

Also during the ceremony, a SUNY honorary doctorate will be
presented to Calyampudi R. Rao, a National Medal of Science winner
and professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University.

A second SUNY honorary doctorate will be presented to renowned
composer Charles Wuorinen on June 4 as part of the annual June in
Buffalo festival.

The Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal is presented annually in
public recognition of a person who has, in Norton’s words,
“performed some great thing which is identified with
Buffalo…a great civic or political act, a great book, a
great work of art, a great scientific achievement or any other
thing which, in itself, is truly great and ennobling, and which
dignifies the performer and Buffalo in the eyes of the
world.”

John B. Simpson, who served as UB’s 14th president from
2004-11, led the academic community in launching UB 2020, the
long-range strategic plan that focused on investing in core
interdisciplinary areas of research strength, transforming
institutional operations and implementing a comprehensive physical
plan.

Simpson has published widely on the role of public higher
education in American life and on the impact of research
universities on social and economic prosperity. A leading voice on
educational access and collaboration, he championed a historic
partnership with the Buffalo Public Schools to improve educational
outcomes and significantly expanded the university’s
relationships with its broader communities regionally and
globally.

Before coming to UB, Simpson was campus provost and executive
vice chancellor of the University of California-Santa Cruz from
1998-2003. Prior to that, he served for 23 years on the faculty of
the University of Washington, where he was dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences from 1994-98.

An accomplished research scientist who also held a faculty
appointment in UB’s Department of Physiology and Biophysics,
Simpson has published widely in the field of
neuroendocrinology.

Among his civic and professional leadership roles, Simpson was a
member of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise, Buffalo Niagara
Partnership Board of Directors and the SUNY Research Foundation
board, and served on the New York State Commission on Higher
Education and the American Council on Education’s Commission
on International Initiatives. He was a member of the Council on
Competitiveness, as well as a former commissioner of the Western
Association of Schools and Colleges.

The UB President’s Medal, first presented in 1990,
recognizes “outstanding scholarly or artistic achievements,
humanitarian acts, contributions of time or treasure, exemplary
leadership or any other major contribution to the development of
the University at Buffalo and the quality of life in the UB
community.”

For more than 60 years, Edmond J. Gicewicz has served the
university community as a distinguished alumnus, accomplished
faculty member and steadfast university friend. Appointed to the UB
Council in 1997 by Gov. George Pataki, he became one of the
longest-serving members of the council before stepping down this
past winter.

Gicewicz earned two UB degrees – a bachelor's degree in
1952 and an MD in 1956 – and held faculty appointments in the
departments of Surgery and Orthopaedics while maintaining an active
medical practice.

A leader and innovator in sports medicine, he was the founder
and first medical director of the university’s Sports
Medicine Institute and served as the UB team physician for 27
years. Gicewicz also has been the medical director and
physician-in-attendance for numerous amateur athletic competitions,
including the 1993 World University Games. A fellow of the American
College of Sports Medicine, he was named Team Physician of the Year
by the New York State Medical Society in 1991.

As a UB student, Gicewicz was captain of the varsity football,
basketball and baseball teams, and was named Little All American in
football. A lifelong UB Bull, he is a regular attendee and loyal
fan at UB sporting events. He remains active in the local sports
community and is a member of the UB Athletics Hall of Fame –
now known as the Dr. and Mrs. Edmond J. Gicewicz Family UB
Athletics Hall of Fame – and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall
of Fame.

Gicewicz has served as a past president of the UB Alumni
Association and the UB Medical Alumni Association, as well as a
past president of the Williamsville Central School District Board
of Education, Erie County Medical Society and the New York State
Medical Political Action Committee. He also has served on the
boards of numerous state and national professional medical
organizations.

A vital member of the UB academic community for more than four
decades, Diane Christian is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor
of English and a celebrated author, scholar, poet and
filmmaker.

Christian’s books, films and courses reflect the range and
scope of her scholarly, creative and teaching interests. With her
husband, SUNY Distinguished Professor Bruce Jackson, she has earned
international renown for several books and films documenting
conditions for death row inmates in America. She also has
collaborated with Jackson on several acclaimed documentaries that
have been supported by the American Film Institute, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts
and other major grants. These include “Death Row”
(1979), “Creeley” (1985, on the late UB poet Robert
Creeley) and the 1983 film “Out of Order,” based in
part on her own experience as a former Catholic nun who took vows
before embarking on her doctoral work at Johns Hopkins
University.

Her forthcoming books include “The Alleyway of the
Whales,” an introduction and translation of the French
ethnographer Jean Malaurie’s “L’Allée des
baleines,” and “The Priesthood of Death: Essays on
Death in Religion, Politics & Art.” Christian has
lectured widely in Europe and the United States, and has organized
numerous conferences on documentary film, ethnography and silent
film.

She directs a PhD program in folklore, mythology and film
studies, and teaches several high-demand undergraduate courses on
mythology, the Bible as literature and comparative religion. With
Jackson, she co-founded and co-directs the Center for Studies in
American Culture and the Buffalo Film Seminars, a highly successful
classic film series open to the general public.

Her contributions as a university citizen include a term as
co-chair of the General Education Task Force, membership on the
Honors Council advising the University Honors College, service on
two presidential inauguration committees and multiple senior
leadership search efforts, and numerous roles advising the
university on advancing its legacy of distinction in the arts,
letters and humanities.

Honorary degree recipient Calyampudi R. Rao is considered a
world leader in statistics whose achievements have had a profound
impact on a wide range of fields over the past seven decades, among
them engineering, biostatistics, economics, genetics, medicine and
anthropology.

Rao is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Indian
National Science Academy and the Royal Society. The honorary doctor
of science degree that SUNY is awarding Rao is the 37th such degree
he will have received from universities across six continents.

The author of 14 books and 475 research papers, and advisor to
50 PhD students, Rao has received numerous prestigious awards. In
addition to the National Medal of Science in 2002, these honors
include both a gold and silver Guy Medal presented by the Royal
Statistical Society, the highest awards given to statisticians in
the U.K.; the Samuel Wilks Medal of the American Statistical
Association, the highest award given to a statistician in the U.S.;
and the International Mahalanobis Prize for lifetime achievement in
statistics.

Rao’s broad influence also is reflected by the numerous
common statistical terms that bear his name, such as the
“Fisher-Rao Theorem” and the terms “Cramer-Rao
bound,” “Rao-Blackwellization,” “Rao
distance” and “Rao’s Orthogonal Array,”
each frequently found in standard statistics textbooks and current
scholarly research.

Former director of the Indian Statistical Institute and Eberly
Professor Emeritus of Statistics at Penn State, Rao spends part of
the year with family in Western New York and has developed a
relationship with several UB faculty members. He holds a volunteer
appointment at UB, interacting closely with faculty and students,
and sharing his research expertise.